He was responding to a request for financial assistance from Christine Frost, the committee secretary.

Stuart sought help from the grant making committee of the ELMC, who were pleased to make this grant to such a worthy cause.

Steve Stanley, another local Freemason, came along to see the work the community association is doing.

He said: “It’s always wonderful to get out and see the work being done in our local community.

“I sincerely hope this grant will enable the community association to make progress towards their goal.”

In their application, Christine wrote: “We opened up our community café in July 2018, with the aim of reducing isolation, increasing social eating, improving mental health and well-being, creating volunteering opportunities, redistributing excess food and engaging with a wider part of our community.

“To facilitate this, a group of volunteers cleared, cleaned and painted the annex area, installed adult toilets, and scoured the charity shops for tableware and table linen.

“The café opened its doors on July 3 and has been a popular community attraction, with families, individuals and small groups coming along to meet and interact.

“However, the room we wanted to use is not really up to the standard needed to operate long term.”

They have set out a two-stage plan of improvements including initially putting in new flooring and decoration, a new fire door, new boiler, water boiler, toaster and soup urn and six new tables.

In stage two they would like to drop the ceiling, install toilet cubicles, sinks, a towel dispenser, and a baby changer.

The application added: “We are determined to extend the café and its facilities to meet the need of our community.

“We are offering volunteer drivers to help people who find accessing the centre difficult and plan to address holiday hunger once we have the correct storage and kitchen facilities.”